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Spell of Mastery
| type = Instant Spell | casting_cost = | research_cost = | effects = The caster wins the game immediately. }} Spell of Mastery is an Instant Spell belonging to the realm. This spell is the most powerful and most expensive spell in the game. Cast on the overland map for a massive Casting Cost of , this spell will instantly defeat all rival wizards, ending the game in sudden victory. Casting this spell also increases the player's Score by +250 points. Effects The Spell of Mastery wins the game - it's as simple as that. More interesting however is the effects occurring when a wizard starts to cast this spell: he/she will severely worsen Diplomatic Relations with all other wizards, who know that they will be defeated if they allow the spell to be cast successfully. This leads to wars being declared on the caster by virtually everybody else. Winning the Game Successfully casting the Spell of Mastery is one of two ways to win a game of Master of Magic. The other way is to physically defeat all enemy wizards by conquering their Towns and reducing their empires to ashes - which can easily be a lot more time-consuming than this spell. Once the Spell of Mastery has successfully been cast, the game ends immediately with an animation of the casting wizard destroying the spirits of his rivals. After this, the Scoring sheet is shown, indicating the player's relative measure of success. The game then ends unceremoniously, returning to the main menu. Winning via the casting of Spell of Mastery awards the player with 250 bonus points on his score (before taking difficulty modifiers into account). Animosity Computer-controlled rival wizards are quite aware that the Spell of Mastery equals defeat for them. As soon as this spell is selected for casting - even before any has actually been spent on it - Diplomatic Relations with each enemy wizard are worsened by a massive amount. In most cases, all rival wizards will immediately declare war on the wizard attempting to cast this spell. Rivals possessing Spell Blast may attempt to stop the casting of the Spell of Mastery, while other wizards will likely send large armies in an attempt to destroy the caster's Fortress. Enemy Wizards Casting the Spell of Mastery You will be notified whenever an enemy wizard begins casting this spell. Unless you wish to lose the game, it is imperative that you try to stop it from being completed by any means necessary. Again, some wizards will be able to use Spell Blast to counter this spell. This would require a large amount of - equal to the amount already spent on Spell of Mastery by its caster. However this is the easiest way to stop the spell. The other way would be to seek out the caster's Fortress town and conquer or destroy it. By Banishing the wizard, the casting of this spell is stopped - at least until that wizard completes his Spell of Return. To "buy" some time for this military emergency assault you may cast Time Stop , thought it is very expensive on mana and requires having a larger reserve of mana (or gold). A wizard who has already started casting Spell of Mastery once will eventually try it again and again. The only way to stop the spell from being cast permanently is to defeat that wizard completely (i.e. not just Banishment, but complete destruction), or to cast the Spell of Mastery yourself, winning the game before he does. Usage The Spell of Mastery may only be cast on the overland map, for the massive base Casting Cost of - making it the single most expensive spells in the entire game. Most wizards will take upwards of 50 turns to complete this spell, giving their opponents time to try and stop this from happening. Upon selection of this spell for casting, an animation will play showing the wizard's Fortress being engulfed by a magical energy vortex. This animation occurs regardless of which wizard is casting the spell, and thus can serve as an indicator to the player whenever an enemy wizard makes the attempt. Diplomatic Relations between the caster of Spell of Mastery and his rivals are affected immediately - worsening virtually to the point of universal hatred. Discounting any flukes in the game, all rivals will immediately declare war on the casting wizard as soon as the turn ends. Upon completion of the spell, the game ends immediately with the proper animations and the Scoring display - where the +250 point bonus from casting the Spell of Mastery is shown, if the player was the one who cast it. You are then returned to the main menu to start a new game. Acquisition The Spell of Mastery is an spell, which means that it is available to all wizards regardless of anything else. The spell must of course be Researched before it can be cast. It will usually be the very last spell to appear on the research list, and so cannot be researched until the late stages of the game. The Spell of Mastery has the highest (initial) Research Cost of any spell - at a whopping . It can take many turns to complete its research, even for an advanced, powerful empire. Fortunately, the actual Research Cost of this spell is dynamic, and will decrease significantly during gameplay. Each time a new spell is acquired, whether through Research, Spell Trading or as a reward from Encounter zones, the Research Cost of the Spell of Mastery is reduced by half the Research Cost of the acquired spell. For example, acquiring the Skeletons spell, which has a Research Cost of , reduces the Research Cost of the Spell of Mastery by . On top of this, a wizard possessing at least 11 Spellbooks in any of the magical Realms gets a reduction of in the Research Cost of the Spell of Mastery. Note that only spells acquired during the game have an effect here. "Guaranteed Spells" chosen by the wizard prior to starting the game are not accounted for. This also includes the Magic Spirit and Spell of Return spells (which are given by default to every wizard) nor any spells acquired prior to game-start due to Retorts. Finally, as with any other spell, research of the Spell of Mastery is about 20% faster for wizards possessing the Runemaster Retort - except here those 20% could amount to many dozens of turns shaved off the Research time, making this one of the most important benefits of Runemaster. Strategy Much of the strategy revolving around the Spell of Mastery is discussed above. The rest is just a matter of playing the game well - combining all the other strategies together to bring a wizard to the point where he or she can successfully cast it. To reiterate, casting the Spell of Mastery is often considered the easiest way of ending the game - with the other being physical conquest of all other wizards. Therefore, any wizard hoping for a quick, early victory will either find a way to assault his enemies early on, or aim to Research and cast the Spell of Mastery as soon as possible. Remember that upon selecting this spell for casting, all rival wizards are virtually ensured to declare war on you, even if you have alliances in place. They will relentlessly do anything in their power to stop you from casting the spell, and may launch massive attacks at your Fortress town in an attempt to do so. If an enemy wizard begins casting their spell, do anything in your power to stop them. If you cannot do this, your game is lost. Category:Instant Spells Category:Arcane